Confederation of Ubeti
The Confederation of Ubeti (Sango: Cungendoni ke Ubeti; French: Confédération d'Ubeti) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. The Ubeti covers a land area of about 620,000 square kilometres (240,000 sq mi) and had an estimated population of around 46 million as of 2018. As of 2020, Ubeti is the scene of a rebellion in Sagingutui Province, ongoing since 2012.8 What is today Ubeti has been inhabited for millennia; however, the country's current borders were established by the Waguntui Tribe, which invaded its surrounding tribes starting in the late 16th century under Mwamoni I. After relinquishing its protectorate status from France in 1957, Ubeti fell into its first of many civil wars between Absolutists and Populists. Ubeti was ruled by a series of autocratic leaders, by the 1960s, calls for democracy led to the first multi-party democratic elections in 1962. Patassé-Desire Bizimongu a moderate Waguntui became president, but was later removed by General Emmanuel Sangimongohutu in the 2003 coup. The Ubeti Bush War began in 2004 and, despite a peace treaty in 2007 and another in 2011, civil war resumed in 2012. Pre-Colonial period During the 18th century after the death of Waguntui Chief Oshinangungo III in 1794, his son soon-to-be Mwamoni I became Chief and in 1823 began a military and political campaign to unite neighboring tribes and as part of the expansion of the Waguntui Nation. His war with neighboring tribes expanded the Waguntui Their captives were enslaved and shipped to the Mediterranean coast, Europe, Arabia, the Western Hemisphere, or to the slave ports and factories along the West and North Africa or South along the Ubanqui and Congo rivers.2223 In the mid 19th century, the Bobangi people became major slave traders and sold their captives to the Americas using the Ubangi river to reach the coast.24 During the 18th century Bandia-Nzakara peoples established the Bangassou Kingdom along the Ubangi River.23 In 1875, the Sudanese sultan Rabih az-Zubayr governed Upper-Oubangui, which included present-day CAR. Colonial period (1868 - 1957) The European intervention of Ubeti territory began in the late 19th century during the Scramble for Africa.25 Europeans, primarily the French, Germans, and Belgians, arrived in the area in 1885. France seized and colonized Ubangi-Shari territory in 1894. In 1911 at the Treaty of Fez, France ceded a nearly 300,000 km² portion of the Sangha and Lobaye basins to the German Empire which ceded a smaller area (in present-day Chad) to France. After World War I France again annexed the territory. Modeled on King Leopold's Congo Free State, concessions were doled out to private companies that endeavored to strip the region's assets as quickly and cheaply as possible before depositing a percentage of their profits into the French treasury. The concessionary companies forced local people to harvest rubber, coffee, and other commodities without pay and held their families hostage until they met their quotas. Between 1890, a year after the French first arrived, and 1940, the population declined by half due to diseases, famine and exploitation by private companies.26 Charles de Gaulle in Bangui, 1940. In 1920 French Equatorial Africa was established and Ubangi-Shari was administered from Brazzaville.27 During the 1920s and 1930s the French introduced a policy of mandatory cotton cultivation,27 a network of roads was built, attempts were made to combat sleeping sickness, and Protestant missions were established to spread Christianity[citation needed]. New forms of forced labor were also introduced and a large number of Ubangians were sent to work on the Congo-Ocean Railway. Through the period of construction until 1934 there was a continual heavy cost in human lives, with total deaths among all workers along the railway estimated in excess of 17,000 of the construction workers, from a combination of both industrial accidents and diseases including malaria.28 In 1928, a major insurrection, the Kongo-Wara rebellion or 'war of the hoe handle', broke out in Western Ubangi-Shari and continued for several years. The extent of this insurrection, which was perhaps the largest anti-colonial rebellion in Africa during the interwar years, was carefully hidden from the French public because it provided evidence of strong opposition to French colonial rule and forced labor.[citation needed] In September 1940, during the Second World War, pro-Gaullist French officers took control of Ubangi-Shari and General Leclerc established his headquarters for the Free French Forces in Bangui.29 In 1946 Barthélémy Boganda was elected with 9,000 votes to the French National Assembly, becoming the first representative of the CAR in the French government. Boganda maintained a political stance against racism and the colonial regime but gradually became disheartened with the French political system and returned to CAR to establish the Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa (Mouvement pour l'évolution sociale de l'Afrique noire, MESAN) in 1950. Since independence (1957 - present) In the Ubangi-Shari Territorial Assembly election in 1957, MESAN captured 347,000 out of the total 356,000 votes,30 and won every legislative seat,31 which led to Boganda being elected president of the Grand Council of French Equatorial Africa and vice-president of the Ubangi-Shari Government Council.32 Within a year, he declared the establishment of the Central African Republic and served as the country's first prime minister. MESAN continued to exist, but its role was limited.33 After Boganda's death in a plane crash on 29 March 1959, his cousin, David Dacko, took control of MESAN and became the country's first president after the CAR had formally received independence from France. Dacko threw out his political rivals, including former Prime Minister and Mouvement d'évolution démocratique de l'Afrique centrale (MEDAC), leader Abel Goumba, whom he forced into exile in France. With all opposition parties suppressed by November 1962, Dacko declared MESAN as the official party of the state.34